


help! (i've fallen for you and i can't get up)

by oncewewerezombies



Series: Tumblr Fills [10]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alcohol, Alternate Universe - No Sburb/Sgrub Sessions, Alternate Universe - Space, Alternian Empire, Biting, Bulges and Nooks (Homestuck), Economic Disparity, Flushed Romance | Matesprits, Hemospectrum, Kissing, M/M, Meet-Cute, Military, Nook Fingering (Homestuck), Pale Romance | Moirallegiance, Rough Sex, Scars, Scratching, Semi-Public Sex, Trolls (Homestuck), down and dirty fuck, institutionalised inequality, no buckets, up against a wall
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-12
Updated: 2020-07-12
Packaged: 2021-03-05 00:40:56
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,090
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25215655
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oncewewerezombies/pseuds/oncewewerezombies
Summary: Karkat notices this hot blueblood getting stood up in some fancy fucking restaurant.Everything that happens afterwards is attributable to his misshapen pityglands. For once, it turns out ok.
Relationships: Gamzee Makara & Karkat Vantas, Karkat Vantas/Equius Zahhak
Series: Tumblr Fills [10]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/590335
Comments: 16
Kudos: 107





	help! (i've fallen for you and i can't get up)

**Author's Note:**

> “i got stood up on a date and i’m trying to not let anyone find out because i’m super embarrassed so you felt bad and came over to pretend to be my date” au
> 
> Fic number 100! What a milestone.

You're pretty sure that the guy in the fancy dining block you can see through the doorway of the bar has been here longer than you have. 

You're certain of it, in fact. 

Every time the door opens, his head tilts up and despite the cover of his shades, you can tell he's glancing nervously at the entrance to the nutritional building like he's been jabbed with a hot poker. In a fucking kind of subtle way, but he's right in your line of sight and you can't help noticing him, outlined by the doorframe like a particularly elegant oil painting. The way that absofuckinglutely _archaic_ long hair swishes with every movement of his head is just - it catches the fucking eye, alright, it's not like you're staring at him. Anybody else sitting where you are would be in the same position. 

They'd just have to look at this (unfairly attractive) highblood with a stick up his wastechute longer than his spinal supportcolumn, sitting straight up on his seat with the most impeccable posture you've ever seen and they wouldn't be able to take their oculars off him. It's not you, it's him. He looks amazing (that _asshole_ , how dare he), in something that reminds you of dress uniforms and is impeccably tailored to fit his body to its best advantage. You're not a savage, you know good tailoring when you see it; you've just been living on the edges of society for a while. It's not like anyone's picking a mutant to get promoted, you get the shit jobs and not much appreciation for doing them. You're a threshcutioner sergeant and you fucking like it that way; you're not cut out to be an officer, even if you'd had the blood for it. Your squad is fucking yours though, no matter what _officer_ sitting pretty in their coolblooded haughtiness might think. 

...you really think this guy has been stood up. 

God. That's just fucking. You _hate_ that kind of game, and you're glad Gamzee never figured out how to play them, despite how much your experience with highbloods tells you that the cruelty is almost genetic. Your moirail was always kind of fucked up, and unusual though. But back to the guy you're trying to pretend you haven't been watching for the last hour or so. You wonder who would stand the man up anyway. Just. Fucking look at him. If he didn't have such a military air about him, you'd have expected to see him slapped on a copy of Playtroll. Somewhere in the withered husk you call a cardiopusher, you can feel something growing anyway. You desperately try to talk yourself out of it. Maybe his breath smells. Maybe he's a festering nookblister with the toxic personality of a raging beefgrub. You don't know, but the way he just...stays there and doesn't go, like somehow a mistake has been made and will surely soon be rectified... Fuck. _Fuck_.

Finishing your drink, you throw a few credit chips on the counter for the bartender as a thank you for putting up with your presence and pull yourself to your feet. There's a chance that this highblood will just laugh in your face, but you'll give him a chance to save his dignity. From the looks of it, he's got plenty and you have had a distinctly barren field of fucks ever since you were a wiggler. It's not like you've got any kind of inherent honour that you're gonna be fucking besmirching by throwing yourself on this fragbomb of a situation. You just...you really fucking hate this kind of game.

You can feel the maitredominator getting ready to kick you out as soon as you come into the restaurant but you arrow in on the poor asshole at the table sitting by himself and put yourself down on the chair across from him decisively. He lifts his head to look at you, startled, and you tilt an eyebrow at him, curving your lips in a smirk. Wonder if he's going to kick you out or not. This close up, you can see that his nose has been broken before, set crookedly to make it just a little off-centre, and his cheekbones are even more impressive than you'd thought. There's also this dip of a scar in his lower lip that you'd love to get your own fangs into - wait, what. No. This was a strict mercy mission, to save the man's pride. It wasn't about picking up a quick bucketcall.

Still. He's pretty fucking hot.

"Sorry I'm late," you say loud enough to be heard by the nearby diners, and put your elbows on the table, leaning forward a little. You wonder what he's thinking right now, looking at you through the impenetrable barrier of those dark shades. You know how out of place you look on this side of the building; you're a scrappy son of a barkbeast and you look it. Lowblooded stocky and hair cut short down to the base of your horns like any threshie worth their salt. Got some burn scarring on your neck that goes down under your shirt across the back of your shoulder, something you got in a firefight to remind you to duck faster next time. You're a fighter and you look like it, not like the spoiled highbloods that usually hang out in a dining establishment of this calibre. What you really want to know is how he's taking the scarlet of your eyes, but he hasn't reached for a weapon to cull you for the effrontery of getting close to him yet. Maybe you'd escaped culling on Ascension through the virtue of the fact that you'd survived at all, showing you had something of worth to the Empire in that way at least, but not very many trolls actually liked to be around you. Having a highblood moirail, a subjugglator at that, had definitely eased the way. You're pretty sure that's what actually tipped the scales when the Judgement Drones had had to calculate whether you lived or died at the spaceport fields - it's hard to find anyone able to manage a clown in a full rage but you can. Your clown, at least. Back to the matter at fucking hand, you dribbling incompetent, you don't want to leave the guy hanging. Not after what he's just gone through. "Got caught up in some paperwork. You know how it is."

"I - uh, yes, I suppose I do," he says, the bewilderment he's feeling showing briefly on his face, before he looks up as the maitredominator arrives at the table. The teal is obviously itching to throw you out, and you feel his hand come down hard on your shoulder, claws trying to dig through the tough fabric of your shirt to the skin beneath. What an overachieving wankmongerer.

"Sir, is this...troll...bothering you? We can have him removed immediately," the midblood seethes, and you reach for the water glass on your side of the table like you don't give a shit. Sipping slowly, while he tries to snap your collarbone through the force of his grip. Kind of hurts, but like fuck you're gonna show it.

"No, of course not," the blueblood sitting across from you says, and curls his upper lip slightly. His fangs are a fucking mess, and not in the way you're used to seeing. They look fucking jagged, and broken. For a guy who from the outside looks like he wins his fights, his chewchiclets look like he's used to fucking losing them. Kind of intense. What the fuck does this dude do in his spare time? "This is my guest. Now, we could use some menus."

The teal's officious attitude melts under the force of the blueblood's obvious displeasure and scurries off. You brush off your shoulder a little like you're making sure it's clean of dirt, and move your arm a bit to make sure everything's actually fine before lifting an eyebrow at your new acquaintance. You don't know what to call him yet. You wonder if he'll even tell you his name.

"Nice grandstanding."

"I suppose. I can't stand boorish behaviour like that, nothing more," he murmurs, and looks away from you for a moment, hand going up to touch his hair briefly. Is he nervous? You can't lie, that's pretty fucking cute. "I suppose I should thank you from saving myself from embarrassing myself any further - although I don't quite understand what you're doing. Or why."

You shrug uncomfortably; you're not sure yourself. It's always been one of your most untrollish characteristics, the fact that in all honestly you're so fucking soft. You can't help caring about people, alright? It's a fucking vice that's gonna get you culled one of these days, but you can't just go around pretending that you don't care. Usually you try to stick to worrying about Gamzee and in a lesser way about your squad, but something about the way he'd kept _looking_ for the person he was meant to be meeting and just didn't fucking leave, salvage something of his dignity by going home alone...it'd just hit you hard, that was all.

"Maybe I just want you to buy me dinner," you bluff, and raise an eyebrow at him while he looks at you. Something about the way you're looking at him makes him almost smile, the corner of his mouth upticking briefly. It's cute. He's cute. Fuck, you're so screwed. The vagaries of your scattershot pitygland strikes a-fucking-gain. You really need to get off this kink you have for lonely, pitiable highbloods, one of these nights it's going to get you culled. "I could just be in it for what I can get. You look like you could afford it."

"I can." The smile is a little bigger this time. "Is that all you want, just a meal?"

"Ask me again, after dinner." You shrug, and then two menus are set down in front of you. It's not like you've never been around highbloods, you're only a sergeant for a fucking reason. But it's the first time you've been with one in a place like this, somewhere you really can't afford. The bar across the passageway is the lowblood part of the whole building, with prices and products scaled accordingly. And it's where someone like you is meant to fucking stay. 

Still here the fuck you are, barging your way in where you're not wanted once more. Although you think the blueblood you're having dinner with doesn't mind your company much, or at all. You ask a few questions about the menu, not recognising some of it and let him order for you both when the servitormentor comes around. Maybe you don't go out somewhere as fancy as this with Gamzee but you know how the game is expected to be played. Higherblood does most of the talking, and all of the paying; you couldn't afford to eat here on your own, so you guess you're fine with it. A bottle of aged berrysoporific is proffered by the maitredominator, judged worthy enough and poured out into both of your glasses before being stowed in a coolcan on a stand near the table. Guess this is the kind of place where the servitormentors are meant to top up your glasses and the customers weren't meant to lift a wiggledigit.

Much fancier than the places Gamzee prefers; he's happy with a food disc or a good grubburger. Lowblood shit. Guess it'd just be your luck that you'd wound up with the highblood that was a fucking culinary philistine in your pale quadrant.

"So who were you meant to meet up with? Instead of slumming it with a mutant threshie," you say, after taking a moment to savour the taste of the good life. Fuck, if this is what soporific is meant to taste like, you could get behind it. You usually stick to cheap malted yeast fermentation, if you're drinking at all. You usually don't. This is the kind of shit that's meant to be _savoured_.

"An acquaintance..." he hedges, and looks down into the bowl of his goblet, swirling it slightly where it's cupped delicately between his thick fingers. You like how he touches everything like he's going to break it, like he's expecting to shatter. It makes you wonder what's happened in his life to make him feel like that. "I thought there was...something...but obviously it was an error on my part."

"Fuck 'em," you say bluntly, poking your fork full of meat at him like another rude gesturing finger. He flushes a little, and you know his eyes just went wide behind his shades. "Seriously, fuck 'em. Don't think about it again, they're _obviously_ a festering dumptruck of rancid assholes if they'd stand you up like that. You don't deserve it."

"You don't even know me. I could deserve it."

"No, no one fucking deserves that - unless they've done it before, in which case they fucking _deserve_ to feel the burning ignominy of knowing that they'd set something up with another fucking person and they've been betrayed like a _chump_ into wasting their fucking time and looking like a moron for it in public," you say with acid dislike dripping from your tongue, and then shove the forkful of food into your mouth. Chew, swallow. Fuck, this food is so good. You're getting kinda drunk as well, keeping up drink for drink with someone this much bigger physically and higher on the spectrum than you is probably a bad fucking idea. Too late now. "Not that you looked like a moron, from what _I_ could see."

"Oh, well. Thank you."

"Are you smiling? Is that a fucking smile?" You lean over the table, almost getting your shirt in the leftovers of one of the best meals you've ever had in your life. "It _is_ , holy shit."

"Perhaps." He is smiling, and it feels like a fucking victory. This had been a mistake, from beginning to end but you're enjoying yourself, and you think he is as well. You fall back into your seat and shove a few more mawfuls of food into your hungertrap. God, it is just so fucking good, you could cry. How are you going to go back to barrack grubloaf and the weird mystery meat they serve on Cullsday after this? "You're...surprisingly good company."

"That's not what most people say about me," you scoff, gesturing with the knife in your hand briefly. "I'm an asshole. A freaky mutant threshie who doesn't know his fucking place." You grin at him, showing your fangs. What they are, anyway. Compared to his, they're blunt and square but you've got some woofbeast-fangs that can make a good impression. He's toying with a square of something green with orange veins on his plate, and he's _sweating_ heavily. Kinda gross, but you're wondering now just how much you're affecting him. And in what way. This doesn't _feel_ black, even though it should. "Guys like you usually want to show me just where I stand."

"That...wouldn't be the appeal. Hk. For me." He won't meet your eyes, and you cock your head inquisitively. You were starting to appreciate that potentially this highblooded fuck could have some hidden depths. He doesn't look up at you and continues to play with the food on his plate, before one of the servitormentors comes around to fill up both of your glasses, yet again. "...that's inappropriate, I apologise."

"No, I think that could just be what I need to hear." You shrug your shoulders, and grin at him a little as he looks up at you finally. Why does he act so fucking bashful? He's like two times the size you are, and he acts like he takes up half the space. You wonder what it would be like if he really got angry, got real fucking mad at someone. What it would be like to watch him break this shell of glacial dignity he seems to need to wrap himself up in. You want to see it fucking break - fuck. You need to stop thinking like that. 

"...this might seem somewhat overdue, but..." He hesitates, and you give him a look over the rim of your glass that usually sees your recruits pissing their regulation pants in fear. He seems to take it in stride. "What _is_ your name?"

"Oh." Shit, you're blushing, you can feel it. "Karkat. Karkat Vantas."

"Nice to meet you, Karkat." His lips move up into an utterly adorable smile, just for a moment. You're gone, you're so fucking fucked, you're sitting on the most mammoth shamestick of your entire life. Right here in this fucking restaurant. "My name is Equius Zahhak. It's very nice to meet you."

You're the one who can't keep his gaze this time and you have to look away for a moment, before the two of you go back to the easy conversation you'd been having over the meal before. He's an enginihilator, apparently. But he had thought about going into the archeradicator corps, before the Powers That Be of the Empire had decided they needed his biorobotics skills more than his martial abilities. He's impressed by the fact that you're a threshcutioner. That you've seen combat. You're really fucking zeroing in on that little scarred dip in his lip as he talks, you want to drag it between your teeth. You want to kiss him.

You order dessert instead.

By the time the two of you leave the nourishment centre, you're more than just a little smashed and you think Equius is along the same way. The food was good and the soporifics were better. You're not used to eating so well, and you're definitely not fucking used to drinking so good. Whatever they'd served in the tiny glasses at the end had cleared out your fucking sniffnodes, it hadn't tasted like much but fuck, it'd burned so good. You don't want to go back to your lonely room yet, and you don't think Equius wants things to finish yet either.

Equius. You roll the name around your mental tongue a little. You want to know more about him; you want to dig into his skull and find out what makes him tick. Those small displays of vulnerability, shyness, have only made you more eager but you don't know if he wants that. You want to know. You've got to know, or you're gonna go insane thinking about this. You don't know him, not really, and he's totally outside of your life. There's no reason to see him ever again, not unless both of you want to make this more than just a casual encounter. Something that happened, a memory to look back on and nothing more. 

"Hey, Zahhak." You grab him by the wrist, while the two of you are walking down the public thoroughfare like two jackoffs who don't have any other fucking thing to do. Which you guess you don't. Not until you're back on duty, which is not until sometime in the twilight hours of the next night. You don't know what the fuck Equius' command is going to expect from him. Somehow, you don't care. You don't want him to get into any kind of trouble, but you want him to stay with you. You want _more_ than just dinner, one accidental dinner and nothing more. "Hey."

"Mmm?"

He looks down at you, those darkened eyeprotectors making him into some kind of fucking robot. You've always been a presumptuous kind of asshole, so you reach up to slide them off his face. He doesn't stop you. Folding them up in your grasper, you stow them away safely into a pocket of your jacket and then hook your fingers into the v-shaped opening of Equius' shirt collar, that shows you just a glimpse of throat. 

"C'mon." Your breath is scratchy and pulsing in your throat, waiting, but he bends down despite the fact that he has no fucking reason whatsoever to do what you tell him to do, and you kiss him. His mouth tastes like the fire of whatever you'd both drunk last at the nutritional hall, and you take the stuttered pause in his breathing as an invitation to push your tongue past the shattered remnants of his fangs. His hand catches you at the small of your back, a cradling coolness that keeps you up on the balls of your feet as you kiss him, and finally drag your fangs over that nick in his lip. Pulling out a rumbling moan that goes straight to your nook. Ok, you can't not pail him now. You're fucking _committed._ "C'mon. C'mere."

You're repeating yourself because you're fucking drunk, but you don't care. You just want to get _closer_.

This time, when you pull him by the firm grip on his wrist, it's sideways into an alley. You bet he's never fucked anywhere like this before, you bet he's turned in every single bucket to the genematerial collectors like a good fucking boy. The Empire doesn't give a shit about your slurry, even though you donate right on time like every other stupid fucker. This is something different. This is going to be just for fun.

The fact that Zahhak could probably punch you into the next building over but is still doing what you're fucking telling him to is kind of intoxicating. If you're gonna lie, at least you're not gonna lie to your own fucking self. Not much, anyway. You only lie a little, when it doesn't matter much. This...you have a feeling like it could matter a whole fucking lot. 

Kissing him is much better than thinking about it. You kiss him and claw at his pants, letting him shove you up against the wall of the building that forms one half of the alley. When he kisses you, he's so fucking _hungry_. Like he's never been touched before in his life. It's nice, but it's also kind of intimidating. He's just so. Hungry. You wonder fuzzily what the asshole he was meant to meet up with was like. What they would have looked like. You bet that they wouldn't be working up to fucking in an alley on your first 'date'. 

Somehow, you wind up with your back up against the wall and wrap your legs around his waist, feeling the pure physical strength in his imposing body as he holds you up, his hands spread broad across your ass. Oh shit, that's hot. Someone fucking kill you right where you fucking stand, so you don't have to experience life after this moment. You get your hands into his ridiculously long hair and _fucking yank_ , pulling him into you while you're grinding against the feel of the dude's bulge in his pants. Kissing him and getting your fangs into that scarred nick on his lower lip, tasting blood on your tongue as you hump urgently against him, knowing that your nook is already starting to soak through your underwear. Wow, it's going to be fun sneaking into the barracks after this, so that your squad doesn't find out what a bulgeslut you are. Still, there's no way you're going to fucking stop.

"This is so indecent - so lewd -" he hisses against your throat, but you notice he's not putting you down. Or making a move to do anything else besides join you in this depraved debauchery. You chirr at him and chew on his ear as he pants heavily, and _sweats_ while you feel his bulge pressing against the front of his trousers. You manage to get your hands down between the two of you and start actually working at getting things open down there. A few buttons, some sealstrips. You're rewarded with the spill of a cool bulge into your grasper that's bigger than any fucking thing you've ever experienced before and you groan with anticipation as you squeeze your fingers around it to make him gasp. Fucking _adorable_.

"Yeah, put this big fucking thing in my nook," you demand, enjoying the way your softly snarled order makes him shudder. It's something out of this world to be held by all this strength, supported against the damp wall and feeling brick-edges press into your back as you manage to pull your decency coverings open enough that his bulge can squirm up and between your thighs, slick end questing for the warmth of your nook. Your own bulge is coiling in on itself on your stomach, and you huff into his throat as you feel the slick cold weight of his bulge _finally_ find the edges of your shielding plates and the soft entrance of your nook proper. "Huh-holy _shit_ -"

You bite him hard on the shoulder because how else are you meant to express all the feelings inside you besides sinking fangs into flesh. He groans like he's dying and bucks his hips harder, so you don't think he's against it. You snarl and hold on tighter, digging your claws into his back as his fingers press bruises into your hips. You're getting chafed between your thighs with the rub of cloth as the two of you move and fuck in stuttered motions. The amount of bulge inside you is something unparalleled, you've never been this fucking stuffed in your entire mishatched mistake of a life. 

"Absolutely _disgusting_ ," he groans against your skin like a prayer, and you scrabble your heels against his lower back and ass as you lose your grip a little. Equius grunts, grabbing harder at your ass and hips and pulling you back into place again, both of you sweating and breathing heavily as you pail in one of the riskiest places you've ever fucked in your pailing career. Usually you at least manage to get to a block of some fucking kind. But there's just something about Equius that pulled the need to do something like this out of you. You've got the feeling it's pretty mutual. He seems like a classy guy, not the kinda delinquent asswipe who goes around fucking in public areas. Still, you're pretty sure that he's getting off on the fact that he hasn't done something like this before.

"C'mon, put your fucking back into it, you slackjawed fuck, make me really _feel_ it," you demand, and get a grip of his hair at the back of his neck. Throwing your head back, you hiss and curse as you somehow _forget_ that you're fucking against a brick wall and slam your skull into it. He pauses and you snap your fangs at him to make him keep fucking going - he does, which is good otherwise you think you just might have done him more damage than just a few flushbites and scratches. You're teetering on the edge of spilling when he groans against your neck and presses forward more deeply, letting you feel the ache of his bulge pressing against your seedmaterial flap. You hiccup, not sure if it's pleasurable or painful for a moment and then warble as your nook is filled with a gushing current of cool slurry.

You whine unhappily as you feel his bulge slip out of you and he replaces his bulge with his fingers as he leans in heavier against you to keep you pinned against the wall, digits jammed in thick and heavy, curling against the inside of your nook with rough, repetitive motions until you're almost _forced_ to cum. Getting it squeezed out of you roughly like dentalpaste from a tube, while his broken fangs nip at your throat. Crimson red mixing and muddling with dark blue, becoming some sort of murky purple as it drips down his hand, his arm and onto the ground between their feet. You just take a deep breath, and enjoy the feel of it for a moment, like this is something private with the way his looming body shuts the world out. Leaving you in an intimate moment made of sweat and slurry, the way you're both breathing hard and dragging air in over your fangs into your windtunnels, your aeration sacks with difficulty.

Saying you regret what happened is kinda strong but at the same time, you're not exactly fucking sure how you're going to get back to your block without getting dragged by your squaddies to the depths of the Grand Highblood's sweaty codpiece and back for coming back to quarters with slurry on your pants. Fuck, this is disgraceful. You reach up to wind your fingers through a spill of Equius' silky hair and pull him in to kiss him. He rumbles, and you feel his hand against your waist before you pull away finally to pull your pants up. You've got a feeling that Zahhak has never had to zip himself up while his boots were puddled with two different colours, and you clear your throat a little trying not to make it obvious that you're looking at him from the corner of his eye and enjoying his grimace of distaste. He'd definitely got the worst of it out of the two of you when it came to the slurry aftermath.

"So, uh...Zahhak." You drag the tips of your claws along the burn scar on your chin and down the side of your throat, feeling the pleasurable pulse of bruises on your hips. Fuck, he was strong. Your nook throbs with aftershocks of pleasure, and it just makes you feel like the next thing you say is the right thing to do. "You want to exchange trollian handles?"

He snorts, and then his shoulders start to shake as the two of you collapse into each other again. With laughter this time, instead of depraved and public exhibitions of decadently perverse rutting. Ok, maybe you'd been _overly_ casual in tone with your last sentence. Once you both manage to get your breath back, you actually do exchange contact details. You're pretty sure neither of you are fucking sure what this is, but you know you don't want to fucking lose it. 

You even manage to get into your quarters without getting spotted except at a distance, so you think that you've gotten away with this without any repercussions except the ones you want the ones that see you potentially laid on a regular basis, a quadrant filled. If you're lucky and Equius continues to be so fucking stupid as to be enamoured of you, at least. Until you get a fucking vidcall from your moirail a few nights later, which you expect at first to be just the regular long-distance papping. Fuck. The carnival ships aren't circling back to this quadrant for a cycle at least, and it's disgusting how much you miss him. If you had read your moping inner travails coming from the protaganist of a wiggler's romantic novel, you'd throw it the fuck out as a piece of crowd pandering teen angst dreck, completely unrealistic and out of proportion. Sickening.

"Bro. Brooo. Bro." Well, someone seems to be in a good mood. That can't bode well for you or your peace of fucking mind, considering who the fuck it is. You squint at Gamzee through your viewscreen, safely in your respiteblock by yourself. There are some benefits to rank and you _just_ rate a private block, over having to share with someone. Or ( _ugh, boot memories_ ) being in a communal hiveblock full of bunked recuperacoons with a bunch of snoring, assblasting nooksores. 

"What?" you say testily, not sure you want to know but you're limited in the ways you can keep Gamzee occupied from here, lightsweeps away from each other. You on alien pacification duty on this mudball planet at the ass end of existence, and him on...whatever the fuck it was subjugglators were told to do out there in the field of stars. Ugh, he needs to wash his hair. Filthy fucking clown, you'd swear he didn't know what an ablutioncloset was if you didn't drag him into one at every chance you got. Mostly out of self-preservation on behalf of your own sniffnode. He steeples his fingers together and looks at you, somehow managing to loom even through the vidscreen, where you are both basically on the same ocular level. Fucking piece of honking clown shit. His grin only stretches wider, and you can feel the urge to squirm uncomfortably under his gaze growing; you ruthlessly squash it. " _What?_ Spit it out already, bulgebreath."

"Can't a motherfucker just be missing at hearing a shouty brother's voice?" he says, lower lip sticking out outrageously in a pout. Fuck. This goddamn wigglerish asshole. If any of his clowngregation saw him when he was like this, he would have literally zero fucking respect. You don't know whether to be pleased or fumingly indignant that he only shows this side of himself to you. 

"No," you say flatly, and arch an eyebrow at him. Gamzee doesn't say that kind of shit without a reason. Despite all signs otherwise, your moirail is a relentlessly manipulative fuckstick when it suits him. Most of the time he doesn't give a shit about anything, but you're one of the few things he really cares about. It's intimidating and nauseatingly adorable in equal measure.

"Karbro, I feel like you ain't exactly been full honest with me," he sighs out, and tilts his head as he looks at you with barkbeast eyes. What the actual fuck. You continue staring at him, keeping up your facade of dignity for the moment. 

"That'll be a first." The terseness is to be expected, considering how much you _know_ Gamzee keeps back from you. There's Church shit he's involved in that you have no idea about, and other things that a threshcutioner sergeant shouldn't be aware of. Imperial stuff. You let him keep his secrets when you don't think it's impacting on your relationship, or Gamzee's wellbeing. It's rich to have Gamzee accuse you of keeping something back. You massage between your eyes briefly, closing them for a moment. "So what am I hiding from you, huh?"

"I mean, when a motherfucker meets some other motherfucker and pails him in an alley, _after_ saving him from a course of humiliation of being stood up on a date, that's kinda something you tell your moirail ain't it?" he says, in a voice that says _he's_ being the sensible one here. Your eyes bug out for a moment, and you sit up straighter in your chair, mouth opening in protest. What - how the _fuck_ \- look, it hadn't been like you hadn't been going to tell him about this. When it actually _was_ something. Zahhak hadn't even messaged you back yet (god, you're such a desperate, disgusting fucking moron, you're so fucking idiotic to be the one to message him _first_ ). 

"I don't tell you every time I fuck someone!" you snarl, because aggression is one of the ways you always protect yourself. It doesn't always serve you the best, but it usually at least allows you time to find another way to deal with a problem. Gamzee just chuckles, his chest shaking softly with laughter as his hand extends to bring something up onto your screen.

"Dude, next time you wanna bang someone - don't make it my _MOTHERFUCKING CHIEF ENGINIHILATOR_ , if you don't want a motherfucker to know about it," he advises you in a kindly voice with an undertone of gleeful mockery that makes you lose your absolute shit as Equius' face flashes on the screen. Vaguely worried crease between his eyebrows and above the black slash of his personal ocularprotectors, long hair pulled back away from his face, and now actually in his uniform and showing the shoulder badge of an enginihilator in chief of a subjugglator ship instead of the civvies he'd been wearing to his 'date'. God, he must be better at kissing ass and keeping himself alive than you'd thought, having a rank like that with his blood colour and on a clown ship besides.

Screeching at Gamzee through a viewscreen is nowhere near as satisfying as being able to do it in person, especially since it means you can't hit him. On the other hand, some calm corner of yourself muses while the rest of you throws a tantrum worthy of a wiggler who just got told their favourite cartoon was cancelled, this is going to make hooking up again easier. Two quadrants, one ship. 

Maybe there is such a thing as serendipity after all.


End file.
